CatsPajamas

This is from Courage to Change, One Day at a Time in Al Anon II October 31

So many of the choices I’ve made in my life have been reactions to fear. Something in my world changes: a loved one seeks sobriety, a friend is displeased with something I’ve said, I’m given a new task at work, the grocery store runs out of chicken – and inside I panic. I’m attacked by thoughts of disaster. I imagine failure, torment, agony. And then I act. I do something rash or fruitless in order to put a bandage on the situation, because the one thing I most fear is being afraid.

Fear can become a power greater than myself. I may not be able to fix it or make it go away. But today, with a Higher Power who is greater than my fears, I don’t have to let them run my life of make my choices for me. I can grab hold of my Higher Power’s hand, face my fears, and move through them.

Today’s Reminder:

Al Anon is a program in which we find spiritual solutions to the things we are powerless to change. Today, instead of seeking relief from fear by trying to do battle with it, I will turn to my Higher Power.

“That the birds of worry and care fly above your head, this you cannot change. But that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.” Chinese Proverb.

CatsPajamas

This was an "aha" thing for me. I realized that I have choices about WHO or what is my higher power. For a long time, HE was my higher power... and then it was a mixture of him and fear.

If I make someone else my higher power, I lose myself in the process. Today I can make a conscious decision to turn to my Higher Power - the God of my understanding - so that I can continue to grow in my own recovery.

MsPINKAcres

So very grateful for recovery, because I have learned that "fear" is just a feeling. As this sentence says I was more afraid of feeling the fear than the actual thing I was afraid.

Today, I know that sometimes I can just feel the fear and know that the God of my understanding will never, ever leave me in that fear. I will feel it, play out the "worse case" scenerio and then stilll realize that "No matter what, me & my God are going to be ok, even better than OK."

My fears tend to shrink and become small and sometimes even go completely away when facing that statement.

"Courage to Change" - awesome recovery book.
Thanks for posting this.

Rita

QU31

One of my favorite quotes, by the smartest little guy that never lived:

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

That was by Yoda, by the way....

hmbld

Thanks so much for this, it is really fitting for some of my issues over the past month.

My huge fear was going back to work after a year. I took a position that I had experience with in the past, but I felt my skills were seriously rusty, and that my contribution would be lacking at best.

I did it anyway, and WOW! I'm not as rusty as I thought, and within a couple weeks of my return I was getting phone calls to join special projects, and have been told (on separate occassions) by members of my team that they were so glad to have me, and that experience and knowledge has helped them immensely.

I'm just tickled pink, and am feeling pretty darned good about myself these days.

minnie

This is funny - been thinking a lot about fear lately and was going to start a post this weekend when I had some free time. Partly because of some situations in my own life (job hunting, being in a play for the first time, dipping my toe into dating waters etc), but also because I see so much fear on SR. Last summer when at Minx's, I read her copy of "What Happy People Know" by Dan Baker - it was a long awaited lightbulb moment. (Fabulous book, btw .Check it out if you can.)

(a) I can understand, and is where the fight/flight mechanism kicks in. But the other two come from the same place in the brain (the amygdala), which is kind of a throwback to more primeval times in human development. When I thought about all those times I felt the fear (beyond the fight/flight for safety and security), I could trace it back to either of those things. What seemed so complicated was, as ever, so very simple. Not easy, though!

Again, it comes down to acceptance for me. Once I can accept that it is natural for me to feel fear at times, but that I also have the option to push on through that fear, then great things start to happen. For example, I can directly trace my current lifestyle (and its associated freedoms) back to reading that book last summer in AZ. I now base my purchases on usefulness or beauty, not because the "machine" tells me I need to buy it. And I shop around so that I get the best price and therefore my cash goes a lot further (mitigates the "having enough" fear and goes some way towards cancelling out the "being enough" one in this world of you are what you own.)

I know I have kind of gone off at a tangent, however I hope there is a tie in there somewhere! Actually, I have just thought of a link - my HP is my sub-conscious i.e. that part of me that is not tainted by conditioning, but speaks my truth. By understanding my deepest fears (as above), I have a clearer path to my HP, which can only bring positive results.

denny57

I think a natural response to the fear concept is "I'm not afraid!" If I go to the 2nd, 3rd and beyond levels I find most often that yes, it is fear. It doesn't mean I'm a fearful person - I have taken enormous risks in my life. It's the risks I didn't take that I'm interested in examining now. As I do, I realize I rationalized not taking them, but the reasons were indeed for the most part fear based. Of course, some would have been downright stupid for me. In honestly examining my life, dealing with those choices I made based on fear, I have learned so much. Today when I feel resistance to something outside my particular box, I look for the fear factor before making a decision.

minnie

True, Denny. Once we strip away the layers, often it is fear that is at the heart. Which is where Dan Baker is coming from.

The reason for me looking at fear myself is because I am facing a paradox in myself. There have been many times when I have been so paralysed my fear (unbeknownst to me) that I have lierally barely left my house. I have rationalised it, but I have to face the truth - it is all about fear. Then other times, I do things that are on the risk-taking end of the spectrum - setting up in business, sailing from Ireland to Spain which meant being hundreds of miles from land in a notoriously tricky stretch of water and being totally reliant on ourselves should anything go wrong, travelling to the US on my own to meet a bunch of internet weirdos (sorry, lovely friends from SR!), agreeing to take a major part in a play despite never having been on stage before. The parodox is intriguing me at the moment.

Wascally Wabbit

Funny you'd post about fear. I have been having some strange fearful for no reason days. I get panicky and can't put a finger on what is making me this way. I hate it!
So, thanks for the post. It's helpful.

cagefree

EXCELLENT post!

Fear is something I struggle with as a codependent and in general:

Fear of not being accepted
Fear of broken trust
Fear of failure as an individual

Getting behind the curtain of these fears deflates it and makes it not so scary. Answering the question - "why am I afraid?" often takes away it's powers over me and break down the fear into smaller pieces I can deal with instead of the huge monster looming above

Thanks for posting this excerpt!